About Me
Artistic Statement
I have been practicing art off and on since I was a teenager, starting with calligraphy, specifically in the italic script. However, I never took it seriously as a way to make a living. It wasn't until a couple of years ago, during an economic downturn in my local economy, that I decided to return to art and expand my skills. This was a challenging journey as there was a lack of educational materials, teachers, artistic materials, and the high cost of art supplies. But eventually, I was able to figure things out and express myself through my art.
The art that I make and sell is done by human hands, with human thought and human effort and are designated as such. I also create visual objects for society using AI and digital tools, but these are separately designated as "technological products" due to the lack of emotional and intellectual involvement in their creation.
What is Art to Me
For me, art is an internal process rather then an external product. And that internal process uses the medium of the human body and to some extent the tools that can be directly interfaced with human body, be it a paintbrush, a charcoal stick, a pen etc.
Thus for me handmade objects such as a painting, a sculpture, a walking stick carry a significant value as intrinsic (human) art. This is because for me, handmade objects can be done imperfectly and thus carry the risk of doing it wrong.
For art to be good there must be that element of risk and the painting is a representation of the individual attempting to overcome this.
For me AI products do not have this nor does digital art where if someone makes a mistake, there is a "do over" or an undo button and although there can be a lot of editing back and fro, it is not the same quantity and investment of effort that would occur with a handmade product.
Mediums
I use a variety of mediums in different ways and styles but my preferred mediums are India Inks, Relief Inks, Watercolors, Graphite, Charcoals, Pastels and
I also do photography where I tend to mix and meld in with artistic techniques by digital methods. For me in general some photography can be considered as art and dependent of the human cognitive involvement in the picture making process, its value goes up or goes down the art scale.
My Art Sources
I take inspiration from a variety of art sources and styles which include primitive art, calligraphy, classical realism, impressionism, abstract expressionism, modernist. For me these are just repositories of a shared human "data bank' which compassion the range of different expressive means in a painting, namely. line, notan and form.
I use these sources to develop my own visual encyclopedia, so that i can express the ideas I want visually.
Five Pillars of My Art
When creating my art, I hold onto four key concepts, as represented by the following quotations:
- Hemingway, The Old Man and The Sea - "Man can be destroyed but not defeated."
- Kahlil Gibran, Vision - "Life without Rebellion is like seasons without Spring. And Rebellion without Right is like Spring in an arid desert"
- Robert Louis Stevenson - “Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others."
- Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight - “Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”